Hello! My name is Arsenal and I’ve played a Hunter Ranger almost exclusively for about 2 years now. If you’ve PUG’d Lostmauth anytime in the past two years, chances are we’ve run into each other. The Hunter Ranger is a special class in that there are many varied and acceptable build paths depending on your play style but limited in that the Trapper is the only viable paragon path for PvE. My hope with this build is to show off some of the options that you have when playing a Hunter Ranger and that you use it as a tool, where appropriate, to modify your build. In order to achieve 100% Crit, I think you will need to be at least 13k IL. However, lower IL players can easily reach 80-90% by following this guide.

September 8, 2017 Final Update

For those of you that have interacted with me through this guide and in-game, thanks for everything that you’ve given me. Unfortunately, I think that this is going to be my final message on this guide as I don’t anticipate playing Neverwinter for too much longer. I used to have a set routine of what I’d do every single day (usually took up a few hours) to maximize profits on the game, but the developers have completely butchered the economy with their proposed upcoming changes in Mod 12B. For the past two weeks, I’ve only signed on to claim my daily key and I imagine soon I’ll stop doing even that.

With the proposed changes, I believe someone from Reddit calculated that it would cost 40 million AD to upgrade all of your character’s Rank 12s to Rank 14s. And that is just to get to the same power level as before as Bondings are getting hit super hard. I also play a maxed out Devoted Cleric. So together, that would cost me 80 million AD to get back to where I was. Currently, it takes about 30 million AD to max out a character. There’s no chance that I’m gonna pay an additional 40 million AD per character to maintain my power. And personally, there’s no way that I could continue playing while not being best in slot.

For those of you who are new to the game and still throw money at it, the upcoming changes will benefit you as it becomes easier to rank up your lower-level enchantments. However, for the established players, this is purely a cash grab. By transferring the difficulty in upgrading enchantments from RP needed to marks and wards needed, they are attempting to completely drain AD out of the game and force you to spend cash on wards. And the only source of dungeon AD is going to be coming from the Random Queue which is a mess in and of itself.

I’m not so bitter as to delete this guide as some other writers have done in the past. I doubt any information here will ever be irrelevant although it will become outdated. I would highly encourage you to do more research on the upcoming changes and form an opinion about it yourself. For me, I’m just extremely sad that this game has lost all of its magic since Mod 5. Neverwinter, truly, used to be a great game.

– Arsenal

June 25, 2017 Update

Mod 11.5 has dropped and there aren’t very many exciting changes to take note of. In my previous update, I had advocated taking a look into the updated masterwork armors. However, with the announcement of Mod 12, the masterwork armors will only be best in slot for half a mod. I believe the masterwork armors are IL 480 while the Mod 12 armors will be IL 500. Masterwork prices are currently heavily gated behind the rare resource Fartouched Residuum which drops from Master Spellplague Caverns. So if you just have to have the best in slot armor at all times, you’ll be updating pretty frequently and dropping a LOT of AD for the newest and greatest gear. Such is the way of MMOs. Personally, I’ll probably just be waiting for Mod 12 to upgrade my gear.

The only changes I have made to my personal build is that I changed over to the Demogorgon set and I put the Wheel of Elements into my primary artifact slot. To make room for the Shard of Orcus’ Wand, I had to remove my Belial’s Portal Stone. The effect of this resulted in dropping a lot of Armor Pen. However, that shouldn’t be a problem until Armor Pen requirements are upped in Mod 12. If you’re lucky enough to acquire the Fragmented Key of Stars, that artifact would be considered best in slot for every DPS class.

March 27, 2017 Update

So I’ve finally found some time to make some updates to this page. The main playstyle hasn’t changed. I’m not making any changes to my rotation. Just updating the companions, boons, and a few other things. One notable change is that with the multiple nerfs to power over the past few mods it is becoming more and more important for endgame players to stack power. So, if you’re 4k IL and can constantly hit 100% Crit, I recommend moving a few things over to Power, such as enchantments or armor kits. Otherwise, keep trying to stack to 100% Crit.

I have always been a big proponent for the masterwork gear as it had the highest base stat values in the game and the set bonus from the weapons was unmatched. However, it has become outdated and the Relic Vivified Raid set is best in my opinion. Recently, it was announced that masterwork was going to be getting an overhaul in mod 11.5. I’ll wait to get more information, but if I don’t update this guide again for a while, consider looking in to those sets in the future.

For a reflection on my own build, I do now support going with the Orcus set even though I am not using it. However, I find it difficult at this point to continue investing millions of AD into my character and that’s why I have yet to change.

As always, feel free to leave a comment or question down below and I’ll respond.

Mod 10 First Impressions

Ok, so Mod 10 is out on Xbox now so I’ll try to keep most of my updates to my build in this section and I’ll try to edit this over time as things change. The most important thing: largely, I believe almost everything is ok to keep as is. The biggest changes to hit the class were buffs to the Combat and Archery trees and changes to the feat Swiftness of the Fox. Archery is an absolutely boring play-style and Combat, from what I’ve talked about with HRs, really only shines in PvP. The only thing that I’m going to work around is the Swiftness of the Fox changes.

From my first few runs, it is very noticeable that we actually get cooldowns now on our encounter powers. Not always, but often enough to make the class feel awkward. I don’t think stacking recovery is the solution, but if you have a few thousand recovery on your character already, it can’t hurt. SotF now reduces cooldowns based off of Daily powers and At-Wills. What I interpret from this is that it might be decent to stack some AP gain if you have the freedom to do so. Whereas we used to completely avoid At-WIlls entirely, it might be beneficial to sneak in 1 or 2 At-Wills before switching stances and carrying on with our rotation. Using Rapid Strike is probably the best option here. Also, targeted abilities such as Constricting Arrow, Hindering Shot, and Longstrider’s Shot seem to give me lower cooldowns than un-targeted abilities such as Cordon of Arrows. I’m sure some more testing will need to be done.

I think every other part of my build is still valid. As always, leave comments or suggestions down below and I’ll try to respond when I can.

Character Race

You have three options: Dragonborn, Wood Elf, or Drow. With all three options, you are going to want to choose +2 Dexterity and +2 Wisdom. Your Dexterity will contribute to Damage Bonus and Wisdom will contribute to your Crit, Control Bonus, and Control Resist.

Dragonborn – This is the best option because your Power and Crit are both increased by 3% and you receive 5% more healing from all spells and abilities.

Drow – The racial traits are borderline awful but you still get your +2 Dexterity and +2 Wisdom.

Stat Rolls

This is simple enough right here. Roll to max out on both Dexterity and Wisdom. Add +1 to Dexterity and Wisdom every ten levels.

Powers

Pathfinder or Stormwarden? To be fair, it doesn’t really make a whole lot of difference so going one or the other isn’t game-changing by any means. Whereas Stormwarden doesn’t give you any useful powers, going Pathfinder gives you the At-Will power Hunter’s Teamwork/Careful Attack which will apply a small debuff on a single enemy. As Hunter Rangers, we rely almost exclusively on Encounter powers so having this one At-Will available to us is only marginally better than not having it at all. For this reason, I recommend Pathfinder.

Some of the goals of this build are to have high frame invulnerability, be untargetable, and have high stamina gain. This is mainly accomplished through the powers Fox’s Cunning/Fox Shift, Forest Ghost, Steel Breeze, and by shifting as much as reasonable to dodge incoming attacks.

For your At-Will and Daily powers, the only viable powers are the ones listed above. The At-Wills are borderline useless so I won’t go into detail on those. Seismic Shot will knock back and group up enemies. Use it on multiple enemies for maximum effect. The closer that enemies can be grouped together, the more damage that you can do. Forest Ghost has two main positives and negatives: it only costs 50% of your Action Points and grants you invisibility and movement speed for a short duration but it has a somewhat lengthy cast animation that can be easily cancelled and it targets and damages enemies that you run by. It’s not exactly ideal for slipping past a group of enemies unseen.

For your Encounter powers, Constricting Arrow/Steel Breeze is the best Encounter in the game. Constricting Arrow roots your enemies dealing tons of damage and Steel Breeze, which doesn’t deal too much damage, gives you a 400% stamina gain bonus. Cordon of Arrows has a small cast animation but will target an area on the ground and pull all enemies within its range to the middle of the target area. As stated with Seismic Shot above, grouping up your enemies is one of the best ways to do massive damage. Use the two powers in combination for even better results. Plant Growth also has a small cast animation but is the single highest damaging power in your kit. It has the ability to root an enemy for up to 20 seconds, though this is rarely achieved because the root will break after a certain amount of damage is dealt. Fox’s Cunning/Fox Shift is probably the one Encounter that everyone knows. Triggering Fox’s Cunning will give everyone in your party a free dodge. They can still have a status effect applied to them, e.g. you can still be proned by an attack, but you will negate all incoming damage once. Fox Shift is especially useful as a repositioning tool. Using this deals adequate damage to enemies and causes you to be momentarily invulnerable.

Some alternate Encounters that you might consider are Hindering Shot/Hindering Strike and Longstrider’s Shot/Gushing Wound. Hindering Shot/Hindering Strike is especially useful when leveling and in PvP. People often use this power interchangeably with Cordon of Arrows/Plant Growth, but in my opinion the grouping utility of Cordon of Arrows is far superior than any additional roots being applied to a target. Longstrider’s Shot grants a 20% damage buff to all nearby allies, irrespective of whether they’re in your group or not. Gushing Wound applies a damage over time effect that is amplified when your allies strike the same target. I strongly recommend using this ability when running Tiamat, Demogorgon, and Well of Dragons and Stronghold Dragons.

For your Class Features, you are going to want to run Aspect of the Serpent and Crushing Roots. Aspect of the Serpent uses a stacking mechanism to give you a percent damage buff per stack. When you have the Serpent’s Bite feat applied, each stack will provide more damage and give you 2.5% Crit. This is important in trying to reach our 100% Crit goal. I recommend using Crushing Roots as this will apply a daze to all enemies that you root. If you do not daze your enemies, they can still attack you when rooted.

Some alternate Class Features that you might consider are Aspect of the Lone Wolf and Aspect of the Pack. Aspect of the Lone Wolf gives you a 20% Deflection chance and is great for PvP and inexperienced PvE Hunter Rangers. Assuming you can use your other powers appropriately to dodge incoming attacks and “stay out of the red”, there isn’t a great need for higher Deflection chance. Aspect of the Pack just ensures that you and your nearby allies always have combat advantage regardless of your positioning.

Rotation

One of the toughest things you’ll have to do is commit your rotation to muscle memory. There are many different interpretations of the rotation across Hunter Rangers and It’s important that you find one that works for you. For me, I like to start in ranged stance. Use Fox’s Cunning (B) before entering the fight so you already have a dodge prepared. Then use Constricting Arrow (X) to root and daze all enemies followed by Cordon of Arrows (Y) to group them all together. Switch to melee stance. Use Fox Shift (B) to close the gap between you and your target. Use Steel Breeze (X) to regain some lost stamina and finally Plant Growth (Y) to finish your rotation. Use Seismic Shot (LB + X) when you are nearest your enemies as it does more damage the closer you are to them. Dodge using your Shift as needed. If you are fighting a boss, I recommend applying Careful Attack (LT) during any time while in melee stance. Otherwise, it’s not worth the cast animation.

Feats

For your feats, there are two paths that you can take, both in the Trapper tree. You can focus on the more Control-Focused build, which is what I have done, or you can opt for the Crit Severity build which I’ll explain below. I would recommend my build for lesser geared Hunter Rangers and those who play both PvE and PvP.

Control-Focused

For your Heroic feats, it’s pretty straightforward. Focus on Encounter damage, survivability, and stamina gain. Do not put any points into Battlewise (reduced threat), Scoundrel Training (At-Will damage), or Extra Action (AP gain) as those stats they give are completely worthless on Hunter Rangers. Apart from that, you can move around a few points from what I’ve done to fit your play style.

For your Paragon feats, I recommend using my allocated points exactly. The key to the Trapper build is in the two feats Forestbond and Swiftness Of The Fox. This is what allows the Hunter Ranger to have virtually no cooldowns on their Encounter powers when used appropriately in the rotation that I described above. Another vital part of the build is Serpent’s Bite which I detailed when going over the Class Features. Serpent’s Bite and Aspect of the Serpent work together to massively increase your damage and Crit.

Crit Severity

Under the Combat tree, there is an excellent feat called Skirmisher’s Gambit. When applied, you increase your Crit Severity by 50% but you also lose 10% Crit Chance. Choosing this option has three major drawbacks.

It’s 15 points into the Combat tree which would force you to remove 10 points from the Trapper tree.

If you aren’t geared well enough, losing Crit Chance could be mathematically worse than the added Crit Severity.

Crit Severity is additive, not multiplicative.

The third point is very relevant because of the addition of the Dread Enchantment which adds 75% Crit Severity on Encounter powers at Perfect and higher. Because of this, many Hunter Rangers can easily stack 160% Crit Severity before the addition of Skirmisher’s Gambit.

If you do go this route, I recommend removing all points from Ancient Roots and Serpent’s Bite and adding them into Fluid Hunter and Skirmisher’s Gambit. If you are geared well enough and play exclusively PvE, this path can deal tons of damage and is a solid option.

Equipment

Currently, the best gear that you can obtain right now is the Relic Raid set. The pieces drop from the left chest in Fangbreaker Island unrestored and it takes considerable investment in Lanolin, Voninblood, and other materials to restore them up to Vivified quality. As you can see I’m still waiting to get my arms to drop and I’ve done hundreds of runs. If you care, you can feed your gear Voninblood and achieve Tier 3 status and 160 IL.

These are currently the most powerful weapons obtainable. You can acquire them unrestored from the intro quests in Sea of Moving Ice. To upgrade them, you will need to run Assault on Svardborg (Master), which is unlocked through your Storm King’s Thunder campaign. Blue and purple Marks are easily obtainable from the skirmish, but the Superior Marks of Uvar, Stig, and Ild have about a 10% drop chance and are much harder to come by. With the coming updates in Mod 11, there will be a 30% drop chance to receive a Superior Mark. You need 10 Marks total, 5 for each main hand and off-hand, to upgrade to the next quality.

Even if you do not wish to invest in getting your weapons to Legendary, definitely upgrade it to level 59 as they will still be better than whatever you’re currently running and have all enchantment slots open at Epic.

If you do not wish to pursue the Relic weapons, the Twisted set from Mantol-Derith is your next best bet. It’ll give you a pretty decent boost to your power and defense.

Artifact Set

Shard of Orcus’ Wand

Baphomet’s Infernal Talisman

Demogorgon’s Girdle of Might

I used to recommend using the Lostmauth set, and it’s not bad by any means, but the Demogorgon set packs a much stronger punch the higher your stats are. For that reason alone, I now recommend going with the Orcus set.

Rings

Ring of Sudden Precision +4/5 (From Castle Never)

Ring of Brutality +4/5 (From Demogorgon)

Greater Ostorian Ring of Dod (From FBI/MSVA)

If you play any of the four raids often enough it should be pretty easy to obtain the +4 version of each of the rings. If you’re lucky enough to land a +5 you’ll be able to have two offense slots instead of one offense and one defense slot. In my opinion, you should never equip any of the Rising rings. You’re better off just popping a potion at that point.

Shirt and Pants

Gemmed Exquisite Elemental Shirt

Gemmed Exquisite Elemental Pants

Can be obtained through the Leatherworking profession at rank 25 or can be bought off of the Auction House.

Lostmauth’s Horn of Blasting is the only artifact that is required for this build. There are many good alternatives out there and you will have to see how they fit into your build. Here are some other options that you might use.

Primary Lantern of Revelation (Crit, Armor Pen, Combat Advantage)

Shard of Valindra’s Crown (Power, Life Steal, Control Bonus)

Horn of Valhalla (Maximum Hit Points, Crit, Combat Advantage)

Sigil of the Trickster (Crit, Deflection, Combat Advantage)

Fragmented Key of Stars (Power, Crit, Armor Pen)

Enchantments

Weapon: Transcendent Dread

Armor: Transcendent Soulforged

Offense: Full Brutal or Radiant Rank 12s but you could also use Azures for your Crit

Defense: Full Savage Rank 12s but you could also use a mix of Radiants for HP and Darks for Life Steal

Here’s some quick notes if you can’t afford the Rank 12 variants of these enchantments. The Dread maxes its Crit Severity when it is Perfect: you don’t have to take it to Transcendent if you can’t. The Transcendent Soulforged is nice because it gives you crowd control immunity for three seconds upon resurrection. Other than that, there’s not a noticeable difference between Lesser and Pure; just stick with the Lesser. For my Utility enchantments, I prefer Dragon’s Hoards. However, Dragon’s Hoards have a limit on how much refinement drops per day whereas the Fey Blessings will continually drop refinement all day long. Because of this, I recommend getting your Dragon’s Hoard percent drop chance to 10% first and if you have additional utility slots remaining after you achieve your 10% to then start adding Fey Blessings.

~Update: For my Utility enchants, I’ve since started running 3 Quartermaster Rank 12s, 1 Fey Blessing Rank 12, and 1 Dragon Hoard Rank 12. The Quartermaster enchants are the most expensive Utility enchants in the game, but also the best in terms of what they drop. Upon killing an enemy, it drops a bag of loot that can drop rank 6 and 7 BtA enchants. The quality of the loot depends on the level and quantity of Quartermaster enchants you have. You can save these bags of loot for a double enchants event to get double the reward.

Reinforcement Kits

Many people are unaware of this, but adding reinforcement kits to your armor will increase your Item Level by 35 per reinforcement kit. You can add up to eight of them onto your character: four for your head, armor, arms, and feet; and four for your neck, rings, and waist. I recommend applying the Major Power Armor Kit, obtained through your Mailsmithing profession or the Auction House, to your head, armor, arms, and feet. Then apply the Major Stamina Regeneration Jewel, obtained through your Jewelcrafting profession or the Auction House, to your neck, rings, and waist. Together, this will add +800 Power, +400 Stamina Gain, and +280 Item Level.

Stats

These are just the raw, standing still, out-of-combat and group stats that I have. It doesn’t factor in the stats that I receive from rings, companions, or in-combat boons. We need all of those additional stats to achieve our 100% Crit for this build.

Mounts

For your mounts you have the following three options.

Imperial Rage Drake (+4,000 Crit)

Rage Drake (+2000 Crit)

Heavy Howler (+2000 Crit)

Unless you have a Tenser’s Floating Disk or a Swift Golden Lion, the Combat Power is almost completely negligible. And then of course you’ll want the fastest movement speed that you’ve unlocked.

Stable

For your stable, you’ll have to see what mounts you have at your disposal. Mounts are the most expensive thing in the game so you might have to settle for something other than what I’m using. I believe these five bonuses are the best that you can get on the Hunter Ranger.

Barbarian’s Revelry: Free Life Steal on every hit

Shepherd’s Devotion: Increases team’s Defense, Deflect, and Movement by 5% of your Power. Great with Into The Fray from a Guardian Fighter

Protector’s Camaraderie: Gain up to 12% of your Power when your summoned Companion attacks

Wanderer’s Fortune: Drops refinement in addition to your Dragon’s Hoards but its effects are exhausted quickly.

While it would be ideal to have all epic Insignias, it’s not very important. Uncommon Insignias work just fine. You should focus primarily on being able to complete a set bonus before trying to obtain an epic Insignia. Also, if you do run a legendary mount and remember to use your combat power, consider using Cavalry’s Warning. If you’re not interested in the utility Insignia bonuses and just want more Power, use Assassin’s Covenant.

Boons

IMPORTANT READ THISA little note before we begin. With the addition of the Stable from Mod 9, it is entirely likely that you might start to over-cap on a particular stat. For example, anything beyond 60% Resistance Ignored for PvE is considered wasted. For stats like Control Bonus and Combat Advantage, you start seeing very hard diminishing returns after allocating about 1100-1200 points. You can read more about the math behind this here. Because of this, I have chosen to take some boons that might not be ideal for your build. While in general you will want to go for strictly offensive boons, you will have to evaluate your build to make sure that you do not over-cap on certain stats and change it accordingly. I will notate my differences below.

Tyranny of Dragons

For the final three boons, you may choose to put all three points into one boon, but it is more cost effective to allocate one point each into Dragon’s Thirst, Dragon’s Fury, and Dragon’s Grip.

Sharandar

Very straightforward here. For the last boon, you do have the option of going Elven Resolve for Stamina Gain or Elvish Fury for additional Power. I recommend going for Power but the added Stamina Gain isn’t bad either.

Dread Ring

For your final boon, you have the option of going for Rampaging Madness, which will give +4000 of three different stats or you can go for Endless Consumption which gives the chance at tripling your Life Steal Severity. The problem with Rampaging Madness is that it takes a while to build up before you achieve the bonus and then only lasts for 10 seconds thereafter. As Hunter Rangers, we can fire off multiple attacks from our Encounter powers in rapid succession which increases our ability to proc Endless Consumption. For that reason, I recommend taking Endless Consumption.

Icewind Dale

Here is where I differentiate. For the first boon, I choose Weathering the Storm for the sole reason being that I am over-capped on Combat Advantage. Choose your boon based on what your character needs. For the final boon, I recommend Rousing Warmth. This boon procs when you life steal in addition to when you are healed by standard means.

Underdark

The only thing you have to decide on is the 4th boon. I do play PvP a bit so I opted to go for Dwarven Footing. Crowd control effects are not that big of a deal for PvE so you might want to take Dwarven Stamina for the additional Stamina Gain.

The Maze Engine

Here is where I differentiate. For the first boon here, I choose to go for the added Incoming Healing Bonus instead of the Life Steal Severity. My character is at the point where I feel like I have sufficient life steal such that any more would be a waste. For that reason, I chose Abyssal Regeneration.

Elemental Evil

Here is where I differentiate. Just as I did with the Maze Engine boons, I feel like I already have enough Life Steal so I decided to go with Earth’s Renewal for the Regeneration.

Storm King’s Thunder

Here is where I differentiate. Overall, these boons are quite underwhelming. Icy Wrath and Vengeful Heat are the “offensive” boons here. If you want to use them, go for it, but doing an extra 2000 damage by chance isn’t really great. I’d rather have the up to 5% recovery and 3200 Max HP. For your final boon, you get diminishing returns by selecting 3/3 for Chill of Winter. But the other boons are so bad it doesn’t really make sense to spread them out like we do in the Tyranny of Dragons campaign.

Guild Stronghold

The Guild Stronghold boons are the best boons in the game. Because of this, I recommend that you try your best to join an established guild with at least a Rank 10 Guild Hall. The boons that you are able to choose from vary depending on how your Guild has chosen to progress their Stronghold. I have chosen the following boons.

For my summoned companion, I recommend getting the Con Artist from the Emporium Vendor in Protector’s Enclave. It has the following benefits: two offense slots, active bonus stats that are relevant to our class, and three additional ring slots. The Adorable companion gear would be best in slot, but you do have a few options. What it really comes down to is how many +5 Rings you have because having double offense slots is better than having a sub-par ring. Ideally, I would recommend the following.

Greater Ostorian Ring of Dod x2 (FBI/MSVA)

Ring of Brutality +4/5 (Demogorgon)

You will want at least one of your companions to be legendary so you can achieve the legendary bonus and acquire an additional 15% of your companion’s stats as your own.

Note: With Mod 11, Underdark Rings will no longer work on your companion. Consider upgrading to Greater Ostorian Rings or some of the new companion gear that will come.

Active Companions

Once you reach a certain point in the game you need to start using companions that give percentage stat increases instead of flat stat increases. I use the following.

Air Archon (Additional 5.5.% damage against targets who are not at full health)

Erinyes of Belial (Additional 10% Crit Severity)

Here are some other options that you might use.

Blink Dog (Additional 5% Combat Advantage damage)

Fire Archon (Additional 7% damage against targets at less than 50% health.)

Earth Archon (Additional 6.5% damage against all targets when you are at full health)

Conclusion

When in combat with all of the boons, Sudden rings, and Bonding Stones proccing, this build tops out at about 115% Crit Chance for me. You might think that it’s excessive but when in combat for long periods of time and your some of your buffs wear off, you’re still Critting 100% of the time. Even if you don’t have a maxed character like I do, you should be able to achieve about 80-85% Crit chance with this build.

I like to keep an open mind about my build so if you think it could be improved on or if you spot any mistakes, leave a comment and I’ll try to get to it. Hopefully I’ll be able to keep this guide updated as future modules are released but I feel like it should hold for quite some time. Thanks for reading!

Background My Gamertag is Nicolelg, I am the guild leader of Affinity, and I have played a Hunter Ranger named Lucipurr in Neverwinter since Mod 4. This build has been a project of mine for the last couple of years, and after browsing some of the builds others have used I figured putting this out […]

A Bit of Info: The templock is a rare and amazing build. It is literally built around dealing damage to heal allies and buffs them while doing so. This build doesn’t do max damage because it is more specced into buffing allies and keeping yourself alive. You wont be a DC but you should still […]

Introduction: I’ve wanted to make a guide for a very long time but wanted to experience everything about the class that I could before I posted this build for others to see. I’m making this build on the grounds that I have attempted to help people in the past; and either the information and tips […]

Question regarding using Protector’s Cameraderie with the Merc Companion – do you know if this has been fixed? I’ve tested using the dummies and at most, it seems to only proc Protector’s Cameraderie one time, if that.

I just started following your build today and saw that you said put all points in Dex and wisdom which I matched at 18 on both in character creation. But I noticed you have your strength at 17. Since I’m still new on this character should I reroll for higher strength or will the 13 or 12 I have be enough?

Remember that with the Golden Belt of Puissance you will get +2 Strength once you get it to epic. Seeing as you’re just starting out on that character, it’s not going to have much effect at all. But once you get to endgame and you’re trying to balance out all of your stats, it might be worth it to you to re-roll.

I am 100% Trapper right now, with my powers being Cordon, Constricting arrow, Hindering Shot, Electric shot for at will, Seismic Shot and Disruptive Arrow..I haven’t attempted high crit build yet, I think i need the sudden precision first. I was wondering if you have tried my build vs yours if the damage is A TON more or not, etc. Thanks.

I’m really not a big fan of deflect because ideally, we should be able to dodge most abilities. And if you ever needed deflect, you could just use Aspect of the Lone Wolf. So Vicious isn’t bad by any means, but I prefer Savage.

I’m a really strong advocate of the Sudden Underdark rings. As long as you have a +4, the personalized rings just don’t compare. Also, it’s usually not the case that we need additional armor penetration so half the stats from the piercing rings go to waste.

Using Hindering instead of Fox’s is interesting. I think overall your build could do more damage just because you’re using damaging abilities instead of Fox’s Cunning, which does no damage. It’s really personal preference in my opinion and I think that choice is valid, but I prefer having the frame invulnerability and repositioning that Fox’s Shift brings. Electric Shot is whatever; our at-wills are awful anyways. I use Disruptive Shot for PvP but it’s really just not as effective in PvE. I think it’s easier to pull mobs without dying by using Forest Ghost. But again, our Dailies are pretty average so if you like it, use it.

I play on Xbox so unfortunately Mod 10 has not come out for us yet. I will update this once I’m able to play with the new changes. However, from what I’ve read on the PC patch notes, I don’t think that I’ll be changing much, if anything. I’ll never play Archery or Combat because those play styles are extremely boring.

I know I said I’d probably leave this guide to die, but I just had to approve this comment myself. You do you, bud. But if you’re going to be willfully terrible playing your class, that’s a problem that you’re gonna have to sort for yourself. Also, AD check?

I use a modification of this build when I PvP. I exchange Hindering Shot/Hindering Strike for Plant Growth/Cordon of Arrows, Aspect of the Lone Wolf for Aspect of the Serpent, and Disruptive Shot for Seismic Shot.

For my boons, I use the Armor Pen and HP boons instead of the Power and Defense boons. Then I switch my mount equip power to +4000 Armor Pen.

For my gear, I use all Elemental Lionsmane Executioner, Rosegold Duelist Ring, Ring of Ambush, the Drowned Set, and a Wheel of Elements in place of the Lantern. For my enchants I’ll use Vicious for Offense, Savage for Defense, and Silvery (or Dark) for Utility. Your armor and weapon enchant you can choose whichever one you want based on your playstyle. I use the Transcendent Holy Avenger and Negation.

I can’t say anything for certain until I actually get a chance to play the changes for myself. From the looks of things, I don’t anticipate changing much if anything with my build. I’m certainly going to stay Trapper but might change powers. I’ll update this if I change anything.

No, I’m not going to because that would take up way too much space here, and quite honestly a picture of the power tree doesn’t give too much useful information. I have explained above the powers that I use. I have 4 power points in all of my powers.

First off – great build. A lot of similar things to my own personal build but yours got me thinking about a few things here and there.

You could use nwcalc.com to display your power tree for those that have commented about it. It’s a graphic power/feat tree site. Basically you just input your powers and feats and then you can place a link to it in your build. I haven’t used it but I’ve seen it in other builds. Just some food for thought.

Read your update and found similar solution. Tho after cordon i rapid shot twice and that resets my melee every time. No problems with ranged CDs. But yeah time to throw current muscle memory out the window lol.

Mod 10: Agree, Melee encounters don’t come back quick enough with Swiftness of the fox since changes, I’ve switched that out for Hindering Shot (the 3 aimed shots help alot with the new cool downs), also slotted Disruptive shot instead of Ghost for now, as it only needs 50% to use it and comes back quick. Them two changes seem to bring my cool downs as close to mod 9 as I could get with the old SotF. (god I miss SotF already)

@Arsenal, I’d like to thank you for this build, I’ve used it for some time while on Mod 9 PS4. It was perfect for my play style and I was always on top of the score board.

I find that there’s no real good reason to have to choose between either. I play Pathfinder because I use Hunter’s Teamwork. If you like using Stormwarden, by all means, there’s really not a good reason not to.

I used this build since you posted it abd nevet have problem with it, now Im HR 3100 with some changes in the equipment and others stuff. One of the changes that I do is the Longstrider’s Shot for Fox’s Cunning. Its a little hard because you don’t have the dodge, but help a lot not to do a lot dps, but helps like a support. Also another change is one of my companions, Ihave the golem (i dont remember the complete name) but it helps me a lot.

Thanks! Im always checking this build and I hope still looking forward for new improvements for this class.

Been following your build since NW released on PS4. Been having problems with mod 10. I use hindering instead of fox, but after I launch constricting I double tap to activate master trapper before I launch cordon. I notice you didn’t do that in the video. Would you recommend against it? Started working in aimed shot to help with melee cool downs but the at will still seems a bit slow. Toyed with longstrider but the back and forth didn’t fit my pve play style. Currently use dusk head and feet, dragonflight chest and arms. Took a hit on crit but gained power. Would you recommend against it? Also heard merc was bugged in mod 10 so switched him out of actives and made fire archon the summoned. Still just can’t seem to get my damage up there. I’m 3k so have a ways to go as far as enchants, but any help is greatly appreciated

For PvP, a lot of teams like running with 2 HRs: 1 trapper and 1 combat. So it’s definitely still viable in PvP. For PvE, they really nerfed under-geared HRs. Players who can’t clear mobs quickly enough will have their encounter cooldowns catch up to them which makes the class awkward, to say the least. The HR really shined as a class that had no cooldowns, was super agile, and was always involved in combat. With Mod 10, that statement is now about 75% true.

Have you considered switching out one of your mount insignia bonuses for artificer’s persuasion? Should help those of you with CDR problems, as you’ll get an extra 10% of your power as recovery for 15 seconds every time you use an artifact (1 min CD for mythic artifacts, so 1/4 of the time you should have bonus recovery). Just something to consider.

That’s a valid tactic. For me personally, I don’t use my artifact power except on bosses so it wouldn’t really fit into my playstyle. But definitely could be good if you use your artifact more than I do.

2 questions??? Do you still recommend mercenary on mod 10? I heard it was broken with protectors comaraderie. And if I am not able to craft elemental armor yet, would you recommend 2 dusk/2 dragonflight instead of the elven for the power bonus?

Understood! I’ve done the same. The Con Artist also was my choice of companion since the Mercenary does not proc Protector’s Cameraderie.

My question for you today, is whether or not you would consider using Black Ice Enchantments on your defensive slots over the Savage Enchantments. Personally I’ve been leaning away from lifesteal as of late; defense seems to suit us better when taking hits in FBI.

Thoughts? And again, thanks for all of the discussion. This is a wonderful guide.

Black Ice are valid, if they fit into your build. Personally, I run the defense guild boon which gives me 8k defense so I try to stack up on other defensive stats. That’s why I prefer Savage for the HP/Lifesteal. Also, Black Ice have Deflect. Not saying Deflect is bad, but if I was ever in need of Deflect, I’d be running Aspect of the Lone Wolf.

love the build man, I’ve tried both and can’t tell for the life of me. When i go Crit sev I have 67% Crit chance and 220% Crit sev with trans dread added and with my r12 bonding my Crit still jumps up to little over 100% but I can’t tell if I do more or less dmg overall I can deff tell my cd are longer compared to full trapper build with cunning/forest fear combo.

Hey Arsenal can we expect any changes to this build to be current? I’ve followed your guide but a little too under geared to run it, switched to combat but ready to switch back. would love to see what your doing these days.

It largely is current. The only thing I’ve changed really is my companion setup. I changed from the Mercenary to a Con Artist. I don’t feel the HR has changed much from Mod 9-10 or even going in to 10.5. So unless you want to farm Voninblood and get the new Relic gear, everything is still pretty much the same.

same rotation as before? im using the fire archon solely because he is ranged and companions gift pops quickly. are you using assassins covent for an insignia bonus? i’ve also heard in mod 10.5 the dusk set is going away and people are going 3 dragonflight and one elven / umbral. thoughts on that?

The only change with my rotation is that I’m using Longstrider’s on the last two bosses in FBI. But otherwise it’s the same. FIre Archon is also good. Still the same insignia bonuses. Assassin’s Covenant is good too if you like it. I haven’t heard anything about Dusk going away. I don’t think that’s the case. But unless you’re running the Relic gear, I still think 2 DF/2 Umbral is best.

Neverwinter is my first MMORPG, and I was having a tough time making it through the level 70 content as a solo player. I hadn’t really read up on the game that much, so my build was based on what I thought looked good at the time. Once I respeced based on your recommendations, I was able to take on most of the daily quests solo with no issues, and even contribute to my guild farming heroics and dragon raids. I finally hit 2500 over the weekend, and my stats aren’t quite up to your level yet, but I’m working on it. First 4 mdemo raids were gold, woot!

I made a google doc spreadsheet to track all the gear and items I need to continue the build *coughnerdcough*, slowly working my way up.

Yes, but it’s behind a huge time-gate and you’ll need significant investment into the new fishing and heroics if you want to get them. Otherwise, look forward to spend millions of AD just to get your weapons.

re: enchants – I’ve heard it’s a waste to run multiple QM’s, you just need to run one of them, then swap in the rest just when you open the bags (during 2x enchants) – then go back to 1 QM and more useful utils – any thoughts on that? thanks for the build.

You’re half right. It is true that you only need multiple high-rank QM’s when opening the bags to get the best loot. However, having them equipped at all times gives you a greater chance of the bags dropping in the first place. So if you play a lot and can cap out on the limit of drops you can receive, then maybe you should just run the 1. I don’t play so much so it’s better for me to have 3 rank 12s running at all time.

Sorry I haven’t gotten around to updating this guide. I was going to in a few weeks once I got all of my new gear and campaigns finished. As with my other boons, you may have to choose a different option as you might be at the soft cap for certain stat allocations. For my boons, I chose Cold Hearted, Survival Instincts, Chill Determination, Glacial Strength, and will eventually get 3/3 for Chill of Winter.

2000 damage really isn’t a lot. If it were 2000 power, I’d choose that. The 2000 recovery does help with the nerf to Swiftness of the Fox so that’s why I chose that. Of course, if you want Icy Wrath don’t let me stop you from taking it.

Hey Arsenal, thanks for the guide. I almost gave up on the HR because of the boring playstyle. The guide opened my eyes to a better way to play it and it was love at first try. Appreciated. Just a thought. I changed out Seismic Shot for Slashers Mark. I find that even with no added points to SO gain, using Slashers every couple rotations means all melee cooldowns are done and the added stamina gain for the party on bosses is helpful. Thanks!

Any chance you could let me know if their are gonna be any huge changes to your companion setup when you update? Don’t wanna end up finishing all the companions listed then find out it was for nothing lol.

Sure, so right now I have the Con Artist summoned. Then I use the Earth Archon, Air Archon, Siege Master, and the Erinyes of Belial. I may end up inserting he Wild Hunt Rider in somewhere, but it’s currently at 2 million AD on the Auction House and I’m not sure if I really want to invest much more into my character.

so before i start upgrading a con artist what makes it better than the mercenary? from looking at it it doesnt seem like the con artist has much different from the mercenary but im sure im missing something.

The only downside is the 2 offense slots instead of 3. Otherwise, it’s 3 rings so you can put +5 rings on it and it has a nice buff on it if you read the attack descriptions. Also, the mercenary is bugged and doesn’t proc certain things like some insignia bonuses.

what gear/weapon sets would you say i should aim for also will any of the artifacts you have on your guide now be changing? Sorry to be such a bother just trying to gear up so I can start a guild lol atm i have all but the horn of the lostmauth set so im really hoping that stays the same lol

Nah it’s good. I really should be updating this guide but was gonna wait until I get all my new gear to do so. You should be aiming to have all of the relic weapons/armor from SOMI and FBI. They are best in slot but extremely expensive to obtain. It’s probably going to cost me 10 million AD total to get all of it. Artifacts are still the same as of now. Wheel and Lantern are still best for primary in my opinion, but change what you need to for the other 3.

Yes, there are a lot of bosses that can straight up 1-hit you regardless of whether you have a negation or not. Negation is only good if you don’t plan on running anything that can 1-hit you. Negation is still viable though. Personal preference really.

That makes sense, but by that logic wouldnt just MORE things 1-hit you if youare running SF than negation? Sure, Orcus and a few others are going to 1-hit you regardless, but isn’t that better than also getting 1-hit by a ton more things like dragons in WOD for instance?

Yes and no. It really depends on your character and how good it is. Right now, I’m sitting at 128k HP and 11.3k Defense. So for me, it’s likely the case that the only way I’ll ever die is to something that will 1-hit anyone, regardless of enchantment used. For someone who isn’t as geared as well as I am, they might need a negation to help buff their defenses. But in the end, it’s really personal preference. I think both are good, but Soulforged is better for me personally, mainly because I’ve been running lots of MSVA/FBI/CN et al. where you’ll just get 1-hit.

Additionally, you have to take into account the party that you’re playing with. Are you playing with a solid GF who knows how to hold aggro? Or are you pugging it with some random 2k who doesn’t know what the red circles are for? My groups that I run with are equally geared as I am so it’s not likely that I’m gonna be killed by trash mobs or things that don’t normally 1-hit.

I’ve read several HR builds since deciding to respec my current Stormwarden Trapper… this is, by far, superior in detail and info than anything else I have found. I’ll be using this as a starting point, I think it will work perfectly with my playstyle. Thank you for sharing!

Thanks! I’ll probably be updating this in a few weeks. There aren’t any major changes to build or rotation or anything. Just gonna be updating my gear and new boons. And I use the Con Artist now and swapped out my Mercenary.

Hey Arsenal, I know you’ve said many times now that you were going to update your guide but i was wondering, i’ve been inspecting a lot of high 4k rangers as of late and they are all running with the power armor kits, would you recomend those instead of crit or does it not really make a difference? Im sitting at 70% crit before fire archon procs. When he does i was at 115% crit chance, so i ended up taking azures from offense slots and adding radiants to bring that crit chance to 100 when proc’d. Brutals on the ps4 are too expensive to replace 7 offensive slots right now. And I’ve heard POWER is KING, so i figured i was getting 15% diminishing returns so why not change those to radiants. What rings are you using on your companion? Sudden Precision, Brutality, and? The rings that drop in sva worth putting on companions ie: ring of dod? ALSO jarls gaze and the other gear that is dropping since somi, is that even worth putting on over the dragonflight/elven gear or should i just wait to get my relic armor? Again, Much appreciated. you still take the time to talk to us that have questions. Thank you!

Yes! So with the new relic gear (raid set) you get a LOT of power and crit. So you’ll find yourself over-capping way hard on crit which is why I’ve been running straight Radiants and Power armor kits. You do lose some armor pen so maybe a few vicious enchants to get your 60% Resistance Ignored. For your rings, you need to look at what +5s you have to use. For my character, I use Brutality +4 and Dod +5. For my companion, I use Brutality +4, Krig +5, and Sudden Lifesteal +5. Ideally, I’d be running Brutality +5 and 2 Dod +5s. But having the double offense slots with a suboptimal ring is better than running a +4 of the ring you want. The problem with the Jarl’s Gaze and Historian’s Regalia is that they have pretty poor stat allocations for our class. They are permanent 160 IL, which is good, but the Jarl’s Gaze gives you 5877 HP and the Regalia gives you 1337 Recovery. I definitely recommend waiting for the Relic armor and try to get it vivified. Even if you don’t use the voninblood empowerment, it’s still the best gear in the game.

Thank you for your reply man. I read somewhere that when mod 11 hit that the under dark rings will not proc on the companion, how true is this? if thats the case what ring would you be using to get that sudden power? And the two dods stack on a companion? I figured the jarls gaze and the other stuff that drop in the new chests were pretty useless besides the appearance changes.

Thanks for the advice, and keeping this build current.
I was able to join a great Bryn Heroic party this morning, and got my Raid gaiters restored. Slapped a crit kit on them, and I’m only a few stamina kits away from NSVA. Time to get those relic weapons leveled up!

Is switching to the Orcus set a min-max thing, or will it show some real gains? Double refinement is coming up next month on PS4, and now would be as good a time as any to switch over. Every discussion I’ve seen on the forums and reddit seem to be down on the Lostmauth set, but I don’t see any hard numbers on how much better the Orcus set is.

I don’t think it’s viable at all for PvE. I’ve seen one or two high end PvP players that have a build that uses it. But other than that, there’s better options. There’s too much recovery for that set and recovery is wasted on HRs.

hey man, been meaning to ask you. your insigna’s; are they all skills? and with the new content would you say 60% resistance ignored should be higher? i am seeing a lot of dps with their arm pen up to about 70-80% ignored. Thoughts? btw, i feel as though hr’s have the worst luck in fang breaker! 200+ runs and have only seen the raid chest drop.

All Skill and Dominance. I do Skill up until I have sufficient Crit then Dominance for the rest. 60% RI is all you need. Any more and it’s wasted. And yes i do get the worst luck! My cleric got the full set no problem with fewer than 1/3 of the runs my HR has done.

My hr had 23k crit with epic drake and 30k power. 95.8% crit serv.. I brought my power to 37k n lowered my crit to 17k. My power on my compion is 6k i had 6k crit.. Now i have 3k crit n 6k power on my compion.. With 1700 CA.. Anything should be higher or lowered ? I dont have plus 5 rings on my character.. Only my fire arc

As long as you’re hitting 100% crit, all you have to do is just stack power afterwards. CA soft caps around 1200 along most of the other secondary stats. So you’ll just see harsh diminishing returns after 1200 so you might want to allocate those stats elsewhere. Otherwise, seems very solid.

“Demonic Power will add the Quadit’s base stats to your own while it is summoned.” To me, this would mean +124 Recovery, ArPen, and Power as those are the base stats for the Quasit. I haven’t tested it myself and doubt I will get around to it, but I don’t think it works like you think it works. If it had some unbelievably good power, I think they’d be selling for a lot more than 60k on the auction house.

Hi Arsenal , I am telling you the truth i swear … Its so cheap on the auction house ,because people don’t know about this … Iv already tested it out and that’s the companion that i use , if i unsummon the companion the high stats on me goes away .. the stats are coming from runestones crit etc… and from high crit etc ….gear and stones on gear

Its only 60k only way you will find out if you don’t believe me is to test it out for your self ….

I’m not going to include a screenshot of my powers because it takes up too much room and really doesn’t contain much useful or interesting information. I have 4 points in all my powers and have listed the ones that I used in the guide.

First, thank you so much for this guide. I’ve been struggling with trying to find a guide that fit my play style, was up-to-date and easy to understand. Really appreciate that you explain why you did what you did. Was wondering however if you could show pic of your updated Feats please?

Just a question about your companion’s rings, does it benefit you to have rings that have no standing stats since the rings don’t proc on your companions? Even if you had sub-par rings on them it would still give them more stats to gain from your bonding stones, right?

Yes! So I’ve been unlucky (and lazy enough to not run enough dungeons) and I don’t get very many +5s (or +4s from IG). What’s most important is for you to have double offense slots on your rings because the +700 Power you can get from a Radiant 12 stacked on bondings is much better than a subpar ring.

Hey arsenal, I’ve been working on getting this build up to level with yours. I have full orcus set but it doesn’t seem to hit as hard ATM. I know that’s because my hit point percentage isn’t a very far range between myself and the adds from dungeons. My question is what are your thoughts on running the stronghold company set? The extra Wis and Dex seem like it would make a huge difference.

Honestly I don’t have any thoughts on it; I don’t know anyone who uses it. The Orcus is used explicitly for the set bonus that it brings. Having % power bonus is almost always going to be better than a flat power bonus. While you may get better flat stats from the Company set, you’re missing out on the % stats that the Orcus set gives.

I can’t believe you’ll just be walking away from all this because you won’t be best in slot for awhile. Yes, many changes are on their way but change is necessary to attempt keeping this game relevant. None of us end gamers like change (obviously) but at least give it a chance..

Because they have updated the Item Level since this build was last updated. I still run the same build with exception to the new Primal gear and Chult +5 rings instead of the Trailblazer gear. My current HR sits at 18k IL.

To make the most of the LSS buff (especially on Orcus in T9G, for example), I start with Constricting Arrow to build roots, swap stances, shoot two Rapid Shots, jump back 30′ to make room for Longstrider’s Shot, then jump back in to hit with Plant Growth and Gushing Wound. Careful Attack can be used at the start, and I use Forest Ghost and Disruptive Shot where needed to help with cool down.